Reminisce
by AbsolutAnda
Summary: Nico finds himself wandering through his old neighborhood, and there's an old man giving him a funny look like he knows him.


A heads up: after rereading the first five books, I've realized that I may have made Nico older than he's supposed to have been when his mother died. I've found that the consensus is that he was maybe four, which means he and Bianca were kicking around boarding schools for quite a while. I decided to make him about nine or ten because I was really feeling gypped out of some great forties slang that he could have been using in the books (and I couldn't think of another way to write this story, and I really wanted to write this story).

I'd forgotten about the Lethe thing when I wrote this. And then I was reminded (thank you to all who reminded me, because I completely missed that), but I still love this, so I'm sticking with it. Just...ignore that for now. Deal?

Enjoy!

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Reminisce

By: AbsolutAnda

Nico wasn't sure what made his feet decide to take him to his old neighborhood, yet here he was. What started as a lazy meander through the National Mall had ended rather abruptly just steps from the front door of the old di Angelo home, and he wasn't sure how he felt about it.

Alarmed, maybe. Unnerved, apprehensive, sad, excited, nostalgic. Even a little protective of the small brownstone, and now that he looked at it, a little offended that someone had felt that the brick needed to be painted beige and white. If they'd wanted it painted, they would have painted it themselves.

He paused for a moment and realized what he was thinking. He didn't live there and hadn't for coming up on seventy years. He had no claim to this home and heck, he hadn't once even thought of stopping by in the last five years. Not consciously, anyway. Apparently his subconscious had made other plans as here he was, staring at the now red door of his childhood home, caught somewhere between bursting inside and demanding an explanation for the paint job, and running away as fast as the shadows could take him.

But, instead of doing anything, he simply stared, unable to will his feet to move in any direction. He stared at the small garden someone had planted between the base of the house and the sidewalk (his mom had always wanted a garden), he stared at the righthand second story window, long ago fixed, that he and broken with his BB gun (his rear _still_ stung from that spanking), and he stared at the hole in the side of the cement steps that he and Jimmy had stuffed with firecrackers one hot summer day when they were bored (luckily Jimmy's mother had been a nurse).

He turned his head to look down the street and stared some more.

Lucy's house next door to the right, the angry Russian families who constantly argued to the left. James and David's house was gone now, replaced by a garden where kids were playing under the watchful eye of one of the neighborhood fathers. Nico did a doubletake at that. Since when did fathers stay home to watch the kids on a weekday? That was a new one, as far as he knew.

He had to crane his neck to look around the trees that new lined the street, but it looked like a number of houses had been replaced with new ones. Someone had given it their best try to make them fit in, but they missed by a long shot. Weird purplish brick, big bay windows, odd curved stairs and...was that a statue? What exactly was he look at, its face or its rear?

He glared at the sidewalk that was just too white for a sidewalk, and the weirdly colorful brownstones, the satellite dishes on every roof, and the oddly placed gardens between houses that stood in the places his childhood friends once called home and he wanted none of it. He wanted these people, the _foreigners_ now living in his neighborhood, to know that this was wrong. The freakishly sleek Prius parked outside of his home was wrong. The stay-at-home fathers, the bright blue liquor store that used to be Lou's Drug Store where he got sodas with Jimmy, the church where Bianca used to pick flowers that now looked like a place where lowlifes hung out; it was all _wrong._

But it wasn't. To these people, _he_ was wrong, and where he came from was wrong. The way he thought was outdated, the way he talked was sometimes offensive, his views were skewed, and he had been slapped by the last girl he tried to go out on a date with. Why, he didn't know, but Annabeth had kicked him in the shin for good measure and Percy was stuck with the job of explaining how women's rights had evolved and expanded since 1942. He still didn't know; civil rights and history weren't Percy's strong points.

This was right. This was better.

He sighed tiredly and leaned against one of the new trees. After everything he'd seen since stumbling out of the Lotus Casino five years ago-all the new technology, changes in society, new people, places-how was it that _this_ was what got him? Someone painted his house and planted some trees, and yet an iPod he was completely okay with?

Boy, was he glad he didn't have to live in all this bologna. Imagine him, Nico di Angelo, Ghost King, Son of Hades, stopped dead in his tracks by a microwave. He had looked it up; they were invented just a few years after he got snatched out of time. The internet, now there was a real winner.

"Hey Creeper, mind moving along? You're scaring the kids." Nico jumped at the sudden voice behind him. As he turned his head to face the man, he noticed the stay-at-home dad was watching him warily. The man who had spoken was an older fellow, probably in his seventies. _Probably my age._ He was giving him the stink eye and he was not impressed with this teenager who had suddenly appeared on his street.

"Oh yeah, sorry. I used to live here." He was just barely able to suppress the urge to add "sir", as had been drilled into his head in school when he actually bothered to pay attention or even show up. It wasn't like his teachers were really trying to teach him, anyway. Why take his time to sit through a lesson if the teacher just sticks you in the back of the room to be ignored with the immigrants who can't speak English?

Joke was on Ms. Bertram. Pavel and Ilya were the best part of that stupid class.

He hoped that his vague answer would satisfy the old man's curiosity and maybe help with that eye problem, but the guy leaned in, examining his face.

"When? I don't remember your mug from around here."

"When I was little." Now he was just getting frustrated. What was with the third degree?

"Last name?"

"What's it to you?"

"Listen bum," The old man stepped forward and lowered his voice, glancing over at the kids who were still playing happily. "I've got half a mind to haul your ass down to the police station myself, and don't think I don't..." He trailed off slowly, his eyes searching Nico's face with such intensity that it was starting to make the Price of the Underworld uncomfortable. And this was the guy who could raise skeletons from their graves. "What are you?" The demanding, trying-to-be-threatening voice was gone, replaced by pure curiosity and maybe a little desperation suddenly. Nico was honestly confused by the abrupt change.

"Look, sir, I didn't mean to cause any trouble. I'll just go and we can forget this whole thing ever happened." _'Cause I sure as hell don't want to remember this any time soon,_ he thought as he brushed past the man. He adjusted the collar of his aviator jacket as he walked, a nervous habit he'd had since he started wearing jackets. A second later, he heard the man's voice again.

"Nicky?"

Boy, did that stop him dead in his tracks.

It had been five years since anyone had called him that. Almost seventy, if you included the years he spent on vacation from the normal flow of time. But there was no way that anyone from this neighborhood,_ his_ neighborhood would still be here and still remember that scrawny little Italian kid in his uncle's big leather jacket.

He stood for a few moments, his thoughts racing. He couldn't turn around, couldn't even face the possibility of knowing that man. It wasn't possible.

And even if it was, how could he possibly explain the whole _being fifteen_ thing?

But what if it was? What if, in all_ this_, he could find one familiar face that didn't have a god of Olympus on its shoulder? One connection to his life before, to when he understood what was happening and knew what to expect when he walked outside. If he could find _something_ to hang onto...

"Nicky," the man started again, his voice catching, "if that's you..."

Against all better judgment, Nico turned around, and the man sucked in a breath. They locked eyes and the man's face clicked into place. Sure, there was an extra seventy years of wear and tear, but the basics were all there; the droopy eyes, the round face, the ears Dumbo would gawk at...

"Jimmy?"

Jimmy made a funny choking sound and took a step back. His face was white and and he looked like he was staring into the face of Death himself. Well...

The joy of seeing his best friend after so long was quickly eclipsed by fear at what might happen next. Jimmy's face wasn't giving anything away and he was just standing there. Would he yell for help? Call the cops? Have a heart attack? He was pushing eighty, that was a real possibility now. _Now there's a thought._

After a moment of staring each other down, during which Jimmy just stared and Nico stood frozen and terrified, completely out of his depth, the old man sighed. He covered his eyes with his hand in an exhausted gesture, and then ran the hand over his face.

"I've gotta start taking those pills again." He muttered, more to himself than to Nico. "This is getting ridiculous."

Pills? What... He didn't think he was having a hallucination, did he? Although, if his childhood best friend who disappeared almost seventy years ago suddenly appeared before him looking just a few years older than when he disappeared, Nico figured he might start to consider spending a little time in the madhouse himself. _No,_ he corrected himself, _not the madhouse anymore. Psychiatric hospital? Psychiatric retreat? _ He wasn't sure, but it was a mouthful, whatever it was.

"Um...I'm real. My grandfather told me about you." He suddenly found himself spewing out. Why was he doing this? He should just count his blessings, walk away, and let Jimmy believe that he really was just hallucinating. But he just _couldn't_. Not to Jimmy. "You're Jimmy Collins, right?" He could've kicked himself right there had it not been for the audience. How the heck was he supposed to talk his way out of this one? Why couldn't he just run?

"You're Nicky's grandson?" Jimmy asked slowly, his eyes narrowing as he took in the face before him. Nico's throat went dry as he nodded. He knew that look like he knew his own face, he'd seen it so many times growing up. Jimmy was analytical; he was good at putting pieces together, probably from reading too many pulp magazines. He was the Michael Shayne of their little group, the Sam Space, the Phillip Marlowe. He was the sleuth.

Jimmy was adding it all up, and two and two were coming out to be five.

"Follow me." Jimmy muttered, taking Nico's arm in a surprisingly strong grip and leading him across the street towards a very familiar brownstone. The same one Jimmy had lived in when they were kids. Why the heck did he still live there?

The inside wasn't the same, however. More modern furniture, new photos framed on the walls (though some he did recognize from the past), and a completely new feeling to the old home. But it still smelled the same. Still Jimmy's house.

"Look, I don't know what you-" Nico started, but he was cut off by the door shutting solidly. He was starting to think that maybe this wasn't Jimmy after all, but some monster trying to trick him, trying to get him to lower his guard.

"Who are you, and what the hell are you doing here?" Jimmy demanded, taking a threatening step towards him. Suddenly, he didn't look like an old man pushing eighty. He looked like a confused, frightened, and angry man who could potentially cause harm if he didn't get some answers soon. Nico's hand instinctively went towards his sword. Jimmy's eyes follow the movement for a brief second, but when he didn't see anything, his eyes locked back on Nico's face. Thank the gods for the Mist.

"I told you, my grandfather used to live here. He told me about you." He lied, not as confidently as he would have liked. Normally this was easy. But normally, he wasn't being confronted by his past. His old best friend.

"You said _you_ used to live here." He took another step forward and Nico stepped back, mentally cursing. Now he was standing in the living room, backed up against the arm of the sofa. "Who are you?" Jimmy repeated.

"Nico di Angelo. I was named after my grandfather, your best friend." Nico felt heavy with guilt. How could he be lying to Jimmy? Jimmy, who he never went anywhere without for six years of his life, who read school assignments aloud so Nico wouldn't get discouraged when he couldn't read them, and who sat with him behind the bushes while Nico snotted down his front when the news came that his Uncle Emilio's bomber went down over the Mediterranean.

Jimmy just flat stared at him. "Nicky." He started evenly. He didn't sound impressed. "I know it's you. I don't know how, but I know it's you." Nico opened his mouth to protest, but Jimmy put his hand up to stop him. "Nicky, your left eyebrow twitches when you lie."

Automatically, Nico's hand went to his eyebrow and he frowned. How had he not known that? How had no one told him that before now? Someone must have noticed. Why would no one tell him that?

Jimmy just smirked in that smug way he always had when he caught someone in a lie. Nico had never been on the receiving end of it before. It was pretty insulting.

He didn't bast in his own glory the way he used to. He moved past Nico and sat down on the couch, gesturing for him to do the same opposite him.

"Sit down, will ya? My neck will get stiff looking up at you."

Nico moved around the coffee table and sat down on the other couch uneasily. This encounter was continuously catching him off guard and he couldn't get his feet under him. Just when he thought he knew what would happen next, Jimmy did something completely different, like inviting him to sit on the couch instead of calling the cops, or the Feds, or...whoever one called when long lost friends from seventy years ago appeared from nowhere without aging.

They sat in silence for a few very long minutes; Jimmy studying him with his analyzing stare, and Nico finding anything else incredibly fascinating. He gaze wandered around the room before it landed on the collection of framed photos on the piano to the right; the last seventy years of Jimmy's life. A wedding photo of him and the woman he married (a bizarre thought, though she was beautiful), three men who must have been his kids as they all had the same smug grin and dopey ears, even more kids who Nico could only assume were his grandchildren...the years he had missed while in that casino came crashing into reality in his mind. Until now, they had just been an abstract idea. He _knew_ he'd stepped out for seventy years, but he hadn't really realized just how much time that was until, sitting before him, was the proof of what could have been.

Would he have made his way to the Camp Half-Blood of the 1940s, or gone solo and lived his life the best he could in the mortal world? Would be have married his best girl, had kids, and eventually grandkids? Would he be sitting here with Jimmy, two old men, reminiscing about the good ole days and complaining about back pain?

"I looked for you, you know. After your mother died." Jimmy confessed suddenly, his eyes still locked on Nico when he finally looked back.

"Yeah?" The news was surprising. It never even crossed his mind, what everyone thought about the whole family disappearing like that. He looked briefly with his limited computer skills, but all he found was that the police assumed that he and Bianca had died in the hotel fire with their mother. It was the middle of the war; no one lost any sleep over two missing Italian kids.

"I didn't get very far," Jimmy continued, "but I was ten, and the cops didn't appreciated me barging into their office like I was Humphrey Bogart." Nico let out a quick breath of a laugh at the thought. Jimmy had done a lot of bursting into places and demanding answers. Those private detective stories were his life then. "I actually became a cop because of you. A detective." He added.

"Because of me?" Nico didn't get the connection.

"I kept looking." Jimmy explained. "For years, I kept looking. I checked passenger lists, poor houses, orphanages, juvenile detention centers... I couldn't find you anywhere. You and your sister just...disappeared." He sat back tiredly and rubbed his shoulder, regarding Nico with an amused gaze. "You're my one unsolved case."

Nico honestly didn't know what to say. The thought that anyone, let alone a childhood friend from years before, would dedicate so much time to finding him hit him right right in the gut. He couldn't form words to express what he felt or how to convey his gratitude. 'Thanks' seemed to fall a little short here.

"Jimmy, I..." Anything his mind could scrape together just didn't cut it.

"Bah," Jimmy waved away his mess of a response, which Nico was grateful for. He didn't know where he was going to take that anyway. "That reminds me, I've got some of your stuffy in the back room."

Nico wasn't sure how he'd made the leap to his old stuff, but he didn't question it and followed him back through the double doors to the small study. It was obviously his private room as everything in it screamed Jimmy. The shelves filled with old murder mysteries that lined the walls, the high school and college football trophies, old photos and trinkets from a long life lived fully. Nico felt his chest tighten. He had none of this. He'd missed everything, every single one of Jimmy's achievements.

He studied the picture frames scattered about the shelves as Jimmy rummaged through the closet, cursing occasionally when something fell but brushing off any offers of help. There were wedding photos of his kids, baby pictures, pictures of friends and family, and... Nico's eyes snapped back to the framed black and white photo on the end table next to the well-used armchair. It was of him and Jimmy, taken just a few months before everything went to hell. They sat on the front steps; Nico grinning and Jimmy with a newspaper open, pretending to look upset with the stock market, a toothpick jutting out from his deep frown. It had been just days that the news of Uncle Emilio's bomber crash reached them, which seemed to set off a chain of one horrible even after another. Two months later, every member of the di Angelo family was gone. Except his grandparents...

What had happened to them? Their son lost to the Mediterranean, their daughter to a fire, and their only grandchildren were just gone. What could they have done to recover from that?

"Ah, here we go." Jimmy announced finally, dragging a large cardboard box out of the back of the closet. "Hope you don't mind, but I snuck into your house before the liquidators could start cataloging for the estate sale." He sat down heavily in his armchair and stretched out his back with a groan. "I took everything I thought you'd want when I found you." He gave him a look like _can you believe this guy?_ "Like I said, I thought I was some hotshot P.I."

Nico kneeled down next to the box and paused, mentally preparing himself for what he was about to find. He glanced up at Jimmy, who looked like he might have been holding his breath in anticipation while trying to appear nonchalant about it all. They locked eyes and before he could change his mind, he lifted the lid and threw it to the side.

He wasn't sure what he'd been expecting-toys probably, Jimmy had been ten when he collected this stuff-but what was actually inside hit him like a kick to the chest as memories came flooding back. His mother's jewelry box; his Uncle Emilio's good shaving kit, ring, and comb (he'd always been constantly fixing his hair, though the curls never quite submitted); a stack of now faded photos that had been sent back with Emilio's personal effects; various framed photos from around the house; his old BB gun; Bianca's favorite hair pin... There were more treasured belongings crammed into this box than Nico even realized he was missing. Everything brought back forgotten memories; being mad at his sister and hiding her pin under the neighbor's porch, playing cowboys and Indians with the boys on the street with BB guns that hurt so much when you got hit but it was so fun that no one cared, sitting on their mother's bed with Bianca and watching as she picked out the perfect necklace to go with her carefully put together outfit.

He kept his head down as he sifted through his forgotten life, fighting the stinging in his eyes because _men didn't cry_. Letters, baseball cards, keys to the front door, his toy bomber that he'd hurled against the wall when his uncle's crashed, a pocket watch, ...wait.

He picked up the tarnished gold pocket watch, turning it over in his hands, trying to place who it had belonged to. A flash of gold in his peripheral caught his eye and he looked up to see Jimmy holding out an identical watch, grinning. How could he have forgotten the summer they spent selling newspapers in the city? Waking up at ungodly hours, riding their bikes into the city to run out into stopped traffic to make a sale, dodging cops because they weren't actually supposed to be hawking papers on the street... But after three months, they'd saved up enough to march into the pawn shop, slap their money on the counter, and demand the two, identical pocket watches; their first steps to becoming _men. _The shop owner slapped them both across the head for being rude, gave them their watches, and told them to get the hell out because he had real customers to help.

They both had matching inscriptions, something about love lasting through time. Apparently not, considering they'd been pawned.

"Jimmy, how..."

"I knew I would find you, Nicky." He said sincerely, then added offhandedly, "I was a cocky little shit, huh?"

Nico laughed, and touched his knuckle to his wet eye to discreetly wipe away his tears. Jimmy pretended not to notice. He knew how much Nico hated when people saw him cry. They sat in a comfortable silence for a bit while Nico sifted through old letters, eyes sweeping over his mother's neat cursive that he hadn't realized he'd missed. The paper was yellowed and fragile, and the creases looked in danger of ripping through, but his mother had touched this. He didn't want to let it go.

Eventually, Jimmy's incessantly tapping foot snapped him out of the past. That was Jimmy's nervous habit, he did it when he was annoyed or frustrated, particularly by a problem. Nico could easily imagine his friend as a detective, staring at case files late into the night but refusing to go to bed, foot tapping as he thought through the current mystery.

"This is killing you, huh?" Nico looked up with a grin.

"_How."_ Jimmy demanded, a determined energy rattling through him that seemed to shave decades off until they were just two kids again, flipping through comics on the bedroom floor.

"You wouldn't believe me, even if I told you."

"Try me. Nazis?" Nico laughed, shaking his head. "Russians. Chinese? Japanese. Is this an Italian thing? Cause I got a neighbor, del Floria, older than me-still goes jogging." Jimmy continued on while Nico put down the letters, turning towards his best friend to disappear into a world where there were no monster or gods, just Nicky and Jimmy. "I mean, I thought you Italians just moved to Little Italy to loiter outside of cafes, but here's George in his tracksuit..."

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Let me know if you found any mistakes, and tell me what you thought!

Thanks,

Anda


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